User Comments - socratesinsichuan
socratesinsichuan
Posted on: Wang Guan's Busy Day
August 19, 2011 at 7:22 PMI have to agree. In my two years living in China I found most Chinese pretty unforgiving when it comes to Westerners speaking Mandarin. Sure speak a few words and they say "Oh, you speak Chinese very well." But actually try to engage in conversation or something, and you will find that mocking foreigners' bad Chinese is one of the great spectator sports in Mainland China.
Posted on: Breakup
August 15, 2011 at 7:51 PMDid I hear Jenny say "requires some balls" at 4.50?Generally speaking, that phrase is not uttered with respect to an action a woman performs. That is, we might say of a man who told off his boss "that required some balls." But the phrase would not be uttered if a woman performed the same action--unless she was a pre-op transexual. It's not so much sexist as anatomical. So it could only require some balls to say "我们分手吧" in the case of the male gender. A more sexually neutral (and less offensive) phrase would be "takes some guts."
Posted on: Workout Frequency at the Gym
July 29, 2011 at 6:16 PMHow to say "I never go to the gym"
我没从来去健身房
Posted on: Workout Frequency at the Gym
July 29, 2011 at 6:05 PMCan you just say--
我经常去健身房
I often go to the gym
Posted on: Lucky Day
June 29, 2011 at 12:15 AMKeep the monologues coming. They are not only a nice break from dialogues but I find memorizing them a useful form of study.
Posted on: Manly Men and Womanly Women
June 19, 2011 at 7:27 PMIf you are in China you may not have heard of the book. But in America it was a New York Times best seller for a couple of months after its release this February and the author was on every possible media outlet. An article she wrote for the Wall Street Journal, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," was the most popular article in the website's history, with nine thousand comments. Google "Amy Chua".
Posted on: Manly Men and Womanly Women
June 18, 2011 at 6:46 PMRegarding "母老虎," this was the title of a recent best-selling and controversial book in America, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mothers. It was about a Chinese-American mother and Yale law professor and her rather strict parenting methods. I never knew what the cultural meaning of this term was in China. Thanks for filling in that gap.
Posted on: A Wasteful Husband
June 17, 2011 at 5:28 PMThey (at least Americans) say it about beer. It has to do with the rather quick connection between putting beer into one orifice and having it rather shortly thereafter come out of another. There is not that connection either with hard alcohol or wine.
Posted on: Baijiu or Beer
June 15, 2011 at 4:59 PMI get confused about the meanings of neng vs hui. In the dialogue hui is used to mean ability. What would be the meaning if 'neng' were substituted? For example,what is the meaning of a1 vs a2 and b1 vs b2?
a1.我不太会 喝酒vs. a2我不太能喝酒
b1. 我不太会唱歌 b2.我不太能唱歌
Posted on: Chinese and American Perceptions of Animals
October 31, 2011 at 3:45 PMAs Wittgenstein noted, we cannot have a private language. Language relies on shared meanings. That's why we have these things called dictionaries, which though rather out of favor in an Internet age nonetheless are great things to turn to when you want to find the accepted meaning of a term in the language.
American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition. black sheep:a member of a famly or other group who is considered undesirable or disreputable
Random House Unabridged, 2nd edition: black sheep: a person who causes shame or embarrassment because of deviation from accepted standards of his or her group.
I could go on, but no reputable dictionary tells any other story about the term. The fact that a few people tend to ignore it has no bearing upon what the term actually means in the language.I am just right now grading a paper from one of my Chinese graduate students who is using the term "white lie" in a way to describe a situation that is too serious and grave to be considered a "white lie." Luckily I can point her to the dictionary where "white lie" is defined as a"trivial, harmless or unintentional untruth." The fact that she has heard the term used in other contexts to mean other things even by allegedly competent speakers of the language has no bearing on the fact that the term has a set meaning in the language.
So anyone who says the term 'black sheep' does not have a negative connotation in English is simply wrong, as is anyone who says the term 'white lie' can be used to cover a case of major deception.